What are my figs?

Finally, he said to his gardener, "I've waited 3 years and there hasn't been a single fig! Cut it down. It's just taking up space in the garden."  Luke 13:7 

At this time of year I am talking with students whose grades at not that great. The most effective phrase I've found is "you have to be here anyway, so why don't you just do this...' And then the next class, I praise their efforts and add a little more and so on until they get traction.  Then I back off and they are ok. It doesn't always work but when it does, it's fun to see.  As humans we sometimes get overcome by a large task and stop doing anything.   It's important to make just a little progress each day.  Before you know it, you'll have some figs! 

What are your figs? How can you get some traction?

Tool

When I was growing up, my grandmother used this word 'tool' to describe someone who was 'useful but difficult' as in 'Janice is a tool - She does a lot for the bridge club but her constant chatter during the game is annoying.' 

Recently I used that word, in that way at Sunday dinner and both of my children (aged 21 and 25) jumped in - 'NO!  You can't use that word to describe her!'. I was confused and they tried to explain the current meaning of the word.  Here is the definition from the Urban Dictionary for the edification of all:

tool

One who lacks the mental capacity to know he is being used. A fool. A cretin. Characterized by low intelligence and/or self-steem.

That tool dosen't even know she's just using him.

(and it's funny that the Urban Dictionary misspelled esteem and doesn't - jd)

When I think about the two definitions, they are similar but definitely different.  Sometimes I think about words and how they have changed over the centuries and millennia.   Did the words that I read in my bible mean the same thing to the translator as they do to me today?  A friend of mine reads a different bible translation every couple of years.  She likes to compare the phrasing and meaning of stories. Sometimes I memorize a verse from Luther's translation. There are subtle differences in the German and English versions that I see and feel. 

How can I better understand the word of God?  

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. . .  Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32 For after all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.” Matthew 6:25-34

I am a world-class worrier by nature, even though I know that’s not a faithful way to be. Often my worries are unjustified, but sometimes they are completely legitimate concerns about the usual things that we all fret about: kids, money, spouses, jobs, health, an aging parent, etc.  Sometimes I even kind of like my own worrying, because I think it forces me to take action, to get going and make things that need to happen, happen. And yes, there is an arrogance in that way of thinking. It puts ME totally in charge of things.

Is this what God wants from us? Probably not. I do believe very firmly that God gives us a brain and agency and expects us to use them wisely. (There is some old joke about a guy in a flood. A man goes by in a boat and offers to take him to safety, but the first guy says, “No, I’m trusting in God.” Another guy goes by on a big log—the first guy, “No, I’m trusting in God.” Finally a third man goes floating by on a tire and tries to help, but the first guy says, “No, I’m trusting in God.” He drowns and goes to Heaven. First thing, he asks God,” Why didn’t you save me?” And God says, “Well, I sent you the man in the boat, and the guy on the log and. . .).  I very much believe that God gave us good sense and gifts and he means for us to use them as we move through our lives. But He doesn’t mean us to make our way alone (because we can’t)—we are entirely dependent on His care for us, and the way that is interwoven through our interactions with others through His grace.

So. . consider those lilies. They are not in that field all by themselves. They are not alone, trying to do it all on their own.  So please remind me of this from time to time, so I will stop worrying so much!

Lost Keys and Other Answered Prayers

One of the themes that several of us in this blog keep coming back to is prayer. Should we pray for little things, like losing our keys, which someone just wrote so nicely about? Or should we not bother God with all the trivial stuff that makes up our lives? The Bible says we should “pray without ceasing,” but does God really want to be bugged about. . . you know. . . good parking places. . . football games. . that kind of thing? Asking God for something isn’t magic, but it’s not ordinary either.

I am not actually sure how prayer really works. If God already knows our hearts, why do we need to ask? And if we all pray for a certain outcome, it surely isn’t that God is taking a poll on how things in a given situation should turn out. There is also some country song that says, “God answers all prayers, but sometimes the answer is ‘No,” which is good to remember. All I know for sure is that it DOES work, and the evidence is all around us. Just this past week, I saw my friend John, who is awaiting a heart-kidney transplant and is very sick, walk his beloved daughter down the aisle at her wedding—the embodiment of answered prayers. So I guess I’ll have to wait to learn just HOW it all works when I’m in the Kingdom, and just be faithful about it until then.

Writer Ann Lamott says that all prayer comes down to three things: “Please. Thanks. Wow!” But it’s also our way of having a personal conversation with God. What an amazing thing that is, when you really think about it! My middle son was in this weekend with two of his friends for some Greek event at UT called Roundup. We were thrilled to see him—he hadn’t been home since Christmas, and we miss him so much—but “see” was the operative word. He was so busy coming and going with his friends that he and I didn’t even get a chance to have a real conversation. I was so happy to see him, but I felt a little downhearted when he left. Perhaps our prayers are like that to God. It’s one thing to go to church and be observant, but if we don’t pray, He just “sees” us, rather than us taking the time to really talk to Him. So maybe, after all, he doesn’t mind a bit being bothered with our little, everyday concerns!

Goodbye, cruel world?

I’m reading about the Desert Father and Mothers, the abbas and ammas who went out during the 4^th century to escape the world and become one with the heart of God. I’ve been intrigued by these good folks for a while, attracted both by their love of solitude in the desert landscape, and also by their willingness—maybe even their eagerness-- to give up everything to be closer to God.

This book I’m reading now that talks about their departure from the world, their escape from a European world where Christianity had just recently become legal and, in fact, normal. Their fear was that Christianity’s acceptability would lull people into taking it for grants (bingo), as well as the well-founded concern that the noise and busyness of their lives would draw them away from God and His will. Theirs was an almost-Buddhist like idea, also quite Biblical, of course, that they needed to empty themselves and give up everything in order to gain the eternal Everything.

I struggle with this. As I write, I’m sitting in our modest little desert cabin, surrounded by the snow-capped Sangre de Cristo mountains on one side, the foothills of the Rockies on another, and being entertained by a little western blue birds (not the insistent, nagging bluejay, but the bright blue, round-headed little blue bird), I feel I’m in that thin place, near holiness. But what am I giving up in return for this beauty and quiet place of contemplation? Nothing! Oh wait--we don’t have Internet or even cellphone service out here, for Pete’s sake! But, really, what kind of privilege even brings me here in the first place, what luxurious wealth of time and money? What, for that matter, were those 4^th century desert hermits actually giving up when they retreated from the world? When you think about it, the lifestyles of even the most wealthy and powerful people of that time and place would be unimaginable to us today—a world (mostly) without books or antibiotics, greasy meals concocted from unspiced food, information that traveled no faster than a person could walk, nights that started with the setting of the sun.  And so. . .  the desert fathers and mothers felt they needed to escape even from THAT? So where does that leave us, who live in a world almost too abundant for human habitation?

To think about this roils my waters a bit. Let’s continue to think about it and return to it another day.

(I wrote this a week ago and that quiet day in New Mexico seems very far away already. But the question still remains: Does God call people like us to remove ourselves from our world like he called the Desert Mothers and Fathers? What do you think?)

Pray for Healing

By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is in Jesus' name and the faith that comes through him that has been given this complete healing to him, as you can all see. Acts 3:16

Please pray for my family and friends in treatment for cancer: Sharonda the administrator, Matthew the college student, Katherine the organist, Betty the gardener, Cathy the wife, Mark the husband.  And for those in physical pain: Jackie the coordinator (in tests), Jennifer the teacher (hiatal hernia), Mike the butcher (shoulder), Joy the flute player (loss of hand), Nora the dancer (kidney stones), Mark the biker (heart condition), Ray the fix-it man (fall from ladder), Mekensey the daughter (cycts on ovaries), John the drummer (digestive), Caton the witness (in tests).

May God grant healing and closer relationship to Him. Amen

Clumsy

I am clumsy.  I fall up the stairs, down off my bike, trip over my dog who lays in the same place in the kitchen.  I am not graceful.

I feel that way with God sometimes too.  I don't know how to pray.  What is too menial for Him?  What is too demanding, too selfish? I want to communicate with him.  Should I use the prayer books?  They are filled with beautiful prayers written by people who are/were surely nearer to God than I am!

Paul tells me... The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.  Rom 8:26

Dear Lord, help me to trust in You, communicate with You, for you already know me in my coming and going.  Amen

“Come away to some lonely place all by yourself and rest for a while.” (Mark 6:31)

For several years now, I’ve been able to escape to the high desert of northern New Mexico during Spring Break, which always falls during Lent. To me, this is holy ground, a “thin place” where the Spirit of God shows through much more clearly and easily than it does back home (perhaps it’s not all about geography—home is a busy, emotionally noisy place). I’m not the only one who feels this way—the place is lousy with holy people: Christ of the Desert Benedictine Monastery, a mosque (paid for by the former Cat Stevens! Peace Train, man!), the holy and ancient Catholic/ Pueblo shrine of Chimayó, an American Sikh community---all of them are within a few miles of our cabin. Many people, it seems, find holiness up here.

So my plan was to use this week to make my own Lenten retreat, full of prayer and quiet hikes and, maybe, some time with this blog. Perhaps a trip out to see the Bros at Christ in the Desert and sit with them while they sing the Hours. Listen to God’s breath in my ear, which I usually can’t hear very clearly for all the static in my life.

But—didn’t we know this by now? Life is full of surprises. At the last minute, my daughter decided to join me for a few days, making for a very different kind of trip than the meditative one I’d had in mind. Instead, we ate together, drank a little wine (!), and talked deep, deep, deep into the night. She is nearly half way through college now, and my grown-up Helen is someone who I have really needed to get to know better. (I’m not actually sure I realized that before).  This unexpected time together was a gift I could not have planned or anticipated. My heart is full of love!

The desert is still there. I’ll be back later for some quiet time. Thank you, God, for unexpected grace!